more than
seventeen months, the man who has cause to hate John Harper Drennen
like poison, the man who'd like to entangle both the father and son in
the mesh of the law. It's the man I'm going to get at the end of this
trail, a man calling himself Sefton. And when I get him he's going to
talk, he's going to identify John Harper Drennen, and I'm going to put
the two of them where they'll see the sun through the bars for more
years than is pleasant to look upon!"

Again there was silence and the calm smoking of pipes.

"Why do you tell me this, Max?" asked Sothern after a little.

Suddenly Max's hand shot out, resting upon Sothern's shoulder. Drennen
started, his hands shutting tight, as he waited breathlessly for the
words: "John Harper Drennen, you are my prisoner!" He fancied that he
saw Sothern's body shaken with a little tremor. The words which he
heard at last in Max's quiet voice were these:

"I tell you, Mr. Sothern, because I come pretty near the telling of
everything to you. Because for six years you have been more a father
to me than my own father ever was. Because everything that I am I owe
to you. You set my feet in the right path, and now that I am
succeeding, for by God, success is coming to me, I want you to know it!
I have never talked to you of the things which I have felt most. . . ."
For a moment he broke off; Drennen fancied his eyes glistened and that
he had choked on the simple words. "You know what I mean . . . you
don't think I'm a sentimental fool, do you?"

Sothern, his face white but his expression showing nothing, his voice
grave and calm, dropped his own hand gently upon the lieutenant's
shoulder.

"Max, my boy," he said simply, "I know you'll succeed. I've always
known that. But, old fellow, I think you've got the hardest work of
your life ahead of you. No, I don't think you are a sentimental fool.
We are just in the forests together, and the solitude and the starlight
up yonder and the bigness of the open night are working their wills
upon us. Just remember one thing, Max," and his voice grew a shade
sterner, "when the hard time comes don't let your heart-strings get
mixed up with your sworn duty. If you did I'd be ashamed of you, not
proud, my boy."

Drennen slipped away through the dark. He came to his bed under the
trees and went on, walking swiftly. For the first time in many long
months a new emotion was upon him, riding him hard. He forgot Ygerne
for the m